I recently attended a luncheon lecture (courtesy of Benadore Associates) at the law offices of Milberg Weiss Bershad Haynes & Lerach LLP. I don’t often get a view of the Manhattan skyline from 40 floors above street level, and as I looked out over the city I noticed some
people near me sadly shaking their heads. They were staring at the void where the twin towers once loomed in the horizon, dwarfing everything around them.
The guest speaker was Richard Perle, longtime Pentagon adviser, assistant secretary of defense under President Reagan, and, until last month, chairman of the Defense Policy Board. As soon as he began to speak he caught my attention and maintained it – an impressive feat,
since I tend to tune out after a couple of minutes if what I’m hearing is redundant, self-serving or just plain boring.
Perle was refreshingly to the point and sincere, and he presented the facts with no political finger-pointing. Without wasting any time or mincing any words, he told his audience that the horrific events of September 11, 2001, were the inevitable result of years of failure to respond to acts of terror against the U.S. and U.S. interests.
According to Perle, the absence of any major American retaliatory action in the 1990’s only emboldened the terrorists to do more damage. He cautioned that Western countries were in jeopardy if they remained in a state of denial, refusing to recognize the real agenda of the current crop of terrorists.
These are not just a bunch of bandits, said Perle, but a group as ideologically driven as were the Nazis and the Communists. Their vision is one of an extremist Islamic universe, in which all (including moderate Muslims) must accept their version of Islam or die.
(The above point was made clear yet again when fanatical followers of the Sunni version of Islam recently blew themselves up at several Shiite mosques in Iraq and Pakistan while worshipers were celebrating a Shiite holy day. When it comes to jihad, even against fellow
Muslims, there is no such thing as sucker-punching or hitting below the belt – only a psychopathic disregard for life and anything sacred.)
In the eyes of Islamic extremists, Perle reminded us, the U.S. is the main obstacle to their goal of universal Islam – and therefore an enemy that must be eradicated.
Perle emphasized the need for pre-emptive action against a credible threat. Waiting too long, he said, puts us at serious risk. The UN is a deficient means of protection for a variety of reasons, including its failure even to define terror. If the UN cannot comprehend the need for
timely preventive action, it may be necessary to put together coalitions outside of UN jurisdiction.
Interestingly, Perle here echoed the Talmudic concept of taking the initiative when someone is intent on harming you – killing him, if need be, before he kills you.
Describing Israel as being on the frontline in the war against terrorism, Perle complained about the UN’s hamstringing the Jewish state when it attempts to defend itself against terror.
Perle also sees the necessity of institutional reform on the domestic front – which would include revamping the CIA and State Department. These institutions of protection, as he called them, were built for different purposes, specifically to deal with the Soviet Union and the Cold War. What’s needed now are fewer Russian-speaking personnel and more experts fluent in Arabic and Farsi.
The State Department in particular simply does not understand the culture that drives the emergence of the new threat, he said.
He also was critical of the media’s constant focus on the negative aspects of the war in Iraq (principally the death of American soldiers) at the expense of the positive developments – schools being built, town councils holding productive meetings, community leaders getting elected, real estate going up in value, businesses opening at an accelerated rate,
and newspapers publishing – at least 130 at last count.
Perle spoke of a female Iranian university student in Tehran who told an anti-American French lecturer at her campus, “We have one friend in the world – America. America liberated France (during World War II); why won’t you let the U.S. free us, too?”
Asked what he thought of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s more liberal foreign policy views, Perle maintained that Kerry will eventually shift toward the center once he becomes more aware of the ‘good sense’ of the American public. Perle insisted that “it is more
likely Kerry will become more realistic than President Bush will become less realistic [about the agenda of fundamentalist Islam].”
As mentioned earlier, Perle has stepped down as chairman of the Defense Policy Board, an organization made up mostly of academics who advise the secretary of defense but do not make policy. He felt that resigning would give him the ‘freedom’ to speak his mind and say what he feels needs to be heard.
In his resignation letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Perle wrote that he did not want his “controversial views to be attributed to you or the president at any time, and especially not during a presidential campaign.”
Imagine – a well-connected individual of no small influence putting others first. What a concept.
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